Social Affordances Research Articles

Pathways to motivation and learning in English language education: a case of two youths engaging in multiliteracies

Purpose This study investigates the effect of digital multimodal composing (DMC) on student motivation and literacy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. It explores how students engaged in creating digital animations to respond to literary texts and the implications for integrating DMC into traditional literacy practices. Grounded in social semiotic theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study aims to understand how digital composing influences student engagement, motivation and literacy development. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative data were gathered over a six-month period using a combination of student surveys, semi-structured interviews, reflection logs and student-produced scripts/animations. This study focused on two university students who engaged in multimodal projects as part of their extracurricular EFL activities, examining their processes and reflections. Findings Students demonstrated strong intrinsic motivation during DMC processes, largely due to the social affordances provided by digital multimodal composing. By combining traditional literacy skills with digital practices, students experienced enhanced creative expression, enhanced meaning-making and a deeper understanding of literary texts through the production and sharing of animated videos. This process promoted both emotional and cognitive engagement, emphasizing the importance of teacher guidance and digital tools in creating a more dynamic and supportive learning environment. Practical implications This study outlines a practical approach to DMC through a structured process: selecting and reading a book, proposing a change as if requesting it from the author, creating and sharing a video on YouTube to explain the change and reflecting on the experience. This approach can guide educators in designing activities that deepen student engagement, enhance critical thinking and integrate digital tools with traditional learning methods. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of how digital technologies can transform traditional literacy practices, offering insights into the benefits of multimodal composition for language learning and motivation in EFL contexts. It provides practical examples of how students and teachers can leverage digital tools to enhance literacy education and prepare students for 21st-century challenges.

Choice of Communication Channel for Dyadic Relationship Dissolution Processes in Abusive and Non-Abusive Relationships

Abstract: This study employs an affordances and multiple goals approach to explore channel choices in the initiation of dyadic relationship dissolution processes. In an experiment, participants imagined breaking up with an abusive romantic partner, breaking up with a nonabusive partner, or not breaking up. Then they indicated their likelihood of using various channels (i.e., face-to-face conversation, texting, social media, voice call, and video call) to communicate with their partner, responded to perceived social affordances measures for each channel, and provided insights in an open-ended prompt. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed. Results reveal that face-to-face communication is often preferred for dyadic relational dissolution processes, as bandwidth, social presence, and a lack of accessibility can convey a sense of seriousness and respect for the non-initiator while preventing miscommunication. However, mediated channels offer protection from emotional manipulation (for abusive relationships), physical violence (for abusive relationships), and awkward situations (for nonabusive relationships) thanks to their unique combinations of affordances.

Exploring students’ perceptions and affordances of Google docs-supported collaborative writing

ABSTRACT Purpose Despite substantial research on students’ perceptions of collaborative writing, only a few studies have provided a deep understanding of their perceptions and attitudes toward computer-supported collaborative writing (CSCW). Previous studies have examined learners’ perceptions and attitudes using questionnaires or interviews at a specific time, typically near the end of the study. Design This mixed method study employed both qualitative and quantitative data and investigated 21 advanced English as foreign language (EFL) learners’ perceptions of collaborative writing, and how these changed after using Google Docs (GD). It also elicited students’ perceived affordances and constraints in using GD for either facilitating or hindering CW. The study used pre – and post-questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and students’ online GD practice. Findings The results revealed that using GD improved perceptions of CW and increased awareness of its benefits. Interestingly, the perceived challenges of CW changed significantly, indicating that GD may have addressed some of these challenges. Further, the analysis revealed that students perceived GD’s pedagogical and technological affordances, but not its social affordances. While they appreciated how GD’s sharing, editing, visualization, and feasibility features facilitated CW, they did not find it beneficial for social interaction. Several pedagogical implications will be discussed.

TV news on Instagram: Affordances, genres, journalistic cultures

TV news programmes use social media intensively to promote and distribute their content. Instagram has become integral in this field, as all major players have their own account and Instagram has become a widely used news source. This article analyzes the news coverage of TV news shows on Instagram as a designed space, asking which genres are used, how they are positioned in regard to the technical and social affordances of the platform, and what implications their form and style have for journalism culture(s). Underpinned by the concepts of platformization, digital mediality, and media affordances, the analysis will focus on the characteristic stylistic forms of Instagram news coverage, comparing the Instagram accounts of six German speaking private and public TV news stations from Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. The corpus includes 100 posts and reels from each account collected in September 2023. The analysis identifies different genre profiles of the accounts and then focuses on the question of how different common genres (like headlines, newsbites, news briefs, and reports) as well as reels are designed multimodally, including different structural parts and their patterned style.

Distinguishing social virtual reality: Comparing communication channels across perceived social affordances, privacy, and trust

Social virtual reality (SVR) attempts to allow for connections akin to face-to-face communication (Ftf). Yet, it is unclear whether the technology successfully mimics Ftf or more closely resembles other mediated communication channels. This study empirically compares SVR and other communication channels in terms of perceived social affordances, privacy, and trust through a between-subjects online survey (n = 743). Findings indicate that SVR and Ftf are similar regarding some perceived affordances (e.g., personalization) but differ with respect to others (e.g., anonymity, presence). Additionally, SVR is perceived as significantly distinct from one or multiple mediated channels for almost every measured social affordance. While SVR is seen as offering relatively greater levels of affordances that benefit interpersonal interaction, privacy concerns and a lack of trust in other users were found to often characterize the current user experience. This study provides theoretical insights for affordance research and practical implications for SVR designers.

Does ostracism/rejection impact self-disclosures? Examining the appeal of perceived social affordances after social threat

Abstract Two studies examine how experiencing a social need threat (ostracism and rejection) impacts subsequent preferences for self-disclosure to various digital audiences. Findings consider how contextual/situational factors like need threats may impact the appeal of two established perceived social affordances of media: personalization and privacy/visibility. Participants took part in a (bogus) social media activity to elicit feelings of inclusion/ostracization/rejection and then were asked about sharing their media preferences with various potential audiences. Results show that social need threats have no significant impact on privacy preferences but do affect preferences for sharing with some audiences and not others. Notably, ostracized and rejected participants show different patterns of preferences, suggesting these forms of social need threat may have distinct impacts on future self-disclosures. Implications for online relationship development and community building are considered in the discussion.

How to enhance consumers’ purchase intention in live commerce? An affordance perspective and the moderating role of age

Live commerce is a novel form of social commerce characterized by real-time interaction and synchronous visualization. Drawing upon affordance theory and the affective-cognitive framework, we propose a comprehensive research model that integrates three key dimensions of affordances of live commerce technology, namely utilitarian (visibility), social (social presence, interactivity, self-presentation), and hedonic affordances (entertainment), together with consumers’ cognitive and affective states (perceived diagnosticity and psychological distance). Furthermore, we explore age as an important contingency factor in understanding consumers’ purchase intention in live commerce. We collect data from 353 consumers who have live shopping experiences in China and analyze the research model with the structural equation model approach. Results indicate that visibility, social presence, and interactivity positively contribute to perceived diagnosticity, whereas entertainment and the three social affordances reduce psychological distance. Notably, the influence of perceived diagnosticity on purchase intention is more pronounced among older consumers, whereas the impact of psychological distance on purchase intention is stronger among younger consumers. This study not only advances the understanding of affordance theory within live commerce contexts but also offers practical insights for streamers and live commerce platforms.

Technosocial disruption, enactivism, & social media: On the overlooked risks of teenage cancel culture

In a world undergoing rapid, large-scale technological change, the phenomenon of technosocial disruption is receiving increasing scholarly and societal attention. While the phenomenon is most actively delineated in philosophy of technology, it is also receiving growing attention within a different area of philosophy, namely the so-called “4E Cognition” approach to philosophy of mind. Despite this shared interest in technosocial disruption, there is relatively little exchange between the theorizing going on in these two different areas of philosophy. One of our paper's two main aims is programmatic: to motivate the fruitfulness of such an exchange. We do this by turning to a specific case of technosocial disruption, namely Teenage Cancel Culture [TCC]. TCC cannot be disentangled from the introduction of social media platforms [SMPs] into modern day social life. Hence, we will speak of SMP-Afforded TCC. SPM-afforded TCC is a phenomenon fretted over by societal actors but strikingly ignored in academic research. In our effort to narrow this knowledge gap, we analyze SMP-afforded TCC from a perspective of technosocial disruption enriched by insights from 4E-Cognition. This brings out a specific worry about the role of SMPs in the social lives of teenagers. We argue that SMP-afforded TCC disrupts the social relational domains within which teenagers develop, maintain, and express their precarious social identities, by creating social affordances that are hostile to healthy risky interpersonal identity-exploration. As such, SMP-afforded TCC not only cancels particular individuals for particular acts; it may also pre-emptively cancel a certain way of being a social self, namely a healthy social risk-taker. We conclude the paper by proposing several potential routes for mitigating the perniciously disruptive effects of SMP-afforded TCC and identifying future areas for research.

Digitale Öffentlichkeit(en). Linguistische Perspektiven

Abstract In this thematic volume we ask how digitalization and mediatization are transforming public communication and its conceptual understanding. This introductory text delves into the historical shift from oral and body media to written media in societal communication, highlighting the evolution through telecommunication mass media to the replacement of analog communication by digital forms. It addresses the lack of consensus on the definition of ‘publics’ and public communication, underscoring the multidimensional, heterogeneous, and fluid nature of these concepts. We ask how digitalization and mediatization processes raise questions about fundamental changes in publics due to new technological-communicative possibilities. Furthermore, we discuss the concept of publics as communicatively constructed and maintained, shaped by media and community ideologies. We propose a continuum model for digital/digitized publics, ranging from dyadic communication to multi-party communication. It emphasizes four key aspects for linguistic engagement with digital publics: communicative construction, technical and social affordances, multiplicity of addressing, and practices of digital community formation. With this model and the contributions following the introduction we contribute to a nuanced understanding of digital publics, considering their scale, complexity, and the dynamics of content creation and audience interaction.

Compensatory consumption of specialty agricultural products from an ELM theory perspective: joint effect of product attributes and social affordances

PurposeCompensatory consumption focuses on the psychological value of products. Special agricultural products have symbolic and social functions that effectively meet psychological needs and stimulate compensatory consumption behavior. The social commerce context not only enriches consumer experience but also influences consumer purchase decisions. This study constructs a model based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory to explore the mechanism of compensatory consumption behavior of special agricultural products in a social commerce context.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a two-stage method of partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze 523 valid samples collected through random sampling. PLS-SEM was used to examine the relationships and effects between the variables; fsQCA was used to conduct a cohort analysis between the variables to further reveal the complexity and diversity of compensatory consumption behaviors.FindingsPLS-SEM indicates that product attributes and social affordances influence consumers’ triggering of compensatory consumption behavior for control and belongingness needs. fsQCA shows that there are three different modes, and the satisfaction of belongingness or control needs is a necessary condition for triggering compensatory consumption behavior.Originality/valueThere is limited research on compensatory consumption behavior specifically focused on special agricultural products. This study explores the influencing factors and mechanisms of compensatory consumption behavior related to special agricultural products. The occurrence of compensatory consumption behavior is not only influenced by product attributes but also by the social commerce environment. In marketing strategies, it is important to not only consider product characteristics but also pay attention to consumers’ social and psychological needs.

Creating early language education affordances in two pre-primary education classrooms

Recently, interest in language education in the early childhood education context has increased in research, curricula, and practice. This study contributes to this field by examining what kind of early language education (ELE) affordances are provided in Finland in two pre-primary classrooms, with two teachers, one using English and one using Swedish as a target language in the classroom. The data consist of video recordings of teaching, observation notes, and interviews with the teachers. The analysis using qualitative reflexive thematic analysis is informed by van Lier’s (2004) and Aronin and Singleton’s (2012) theorisation of affordances. The findings suggest that material affordances included using songs, stories, and pictures. Pedagogically, the teachers combined other curriculum contents with ELE and both shared the objective of implementing playful and action-based ELE, although neither teacher actively collaborated with their team of educators in planning or implementing ELE in practice. The social affordances provided for children by the teachers included promoting a positive atmosphere, pedagogical translanguaging through the teachers’ own use of languages, and creating opportunities for the children to become familiar with and learn the target language. The teachers also enabled social affordances produced by the children in form of their active participation, sharing ideas, and inventing novel ways to approach language education and peer collaboration. The findings offer insights into practices in ELE, the importance of varying ELE affordances for children’s learning and the value of integrating pedagogical translanguaging with whole-day pedagogy.

Determining The Needs of Social Affordance in an Open Public Space for Gen Z

Gen Z, who are adolescents, need places for social interaction, places for retreat, and places for restoration to support their development phase. Their needs could be settled by utilizing the space and perceiving the social affordances of open public spaces. The study examined the social affordances of open public space that sustain Gen Z’s development needs. The study was conducted in a famous open public space in Yogyakarta, Titik 0 km Yogyakarta. Questionnaires and observations were carried out for data collection from the visitors of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta between 12-25 years old. The result indicated that Gen Z tends to utilize the physical setting of the open public space to achieve social interaction needs. The variety of seating facilities, enclosure levels, and crowding influenced Gen Z’s decision to do activities in certain locations. The finding indicated the adolescent’s needs for social interaction, retreat, and restoration experiences could be obtained from perceived social affordances by doing social activities in open public spaces. More needs are achieved in open public spaces, more opportunities for Gen Z to enhance their development quality.

Steering the energy with music: hermeneutic phenomenological study of user perspectives of music and music therapy for co-occurring ADHD and substance use problems

BackgroundUser perspectives and involvement are crucial for improving substance use treatment service provision. First-hand accounts provide rich perspectives on how users experience change within therapeutic approaches like music therapy. People with substance use problems have a higher incidence of experiencing challenges with impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention. Such challenges can negatively affect social functioning and outcomes of substance use treatment. Music therapy can offer people a means to regulate emotions and facilitate social relationships. There is a lack of research on user perspectives of music therapy in substance use treatment, and we could identify no studies that explore user perspectives of music therapy for adults with substance use problems and co-occurring impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention.MethodsThe aim of this phenomenological study was to center the voices of people living with co-occurring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and substance use disorder (SUD) to understand how they experience music and music therapy in their process of recovery. We used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to qualitative analysis of transcripts from in-depth interviews with 8 adult service users from a Norwegian substance use treatment facility.ResultsOur main finding was that music and music therapy enabled experiences of motivation and mastery that ultimately afforded social belonging. The participants demonstrated detailed and nuanced understanding of how they use music to steer the energy and restlessness that are characteristic of ADHD, to change mood, and to shift negative thought patterns. These forms of music-centered regulation served as pre-requisites for more active and gratifying participation in social communities. For several participants, musicking offered a means of establishing drug-free identity and fellowship. The motivation and mastery experienced during musicking lowered the threshold for social engagement, and served as an incentive for continuing substance use treatment for some participants.ConclusionsThe nuanced descriptions from our participants illustrate the importance of motivation, and how music therapy can contribute to motivation in substance use treatment. In particular, the context surrounding musicking, adaptations from the music therapist, and social affordances of such musicking contributed to pleasure, mastery, participation, development of identity and social belonging, which in interaction generated motivation.

A new paradigm to study social and physical affordances as model-based reinforcement learning

Social affordances, although key in human-robot interaction processes, have received little attention in robotics. Hence, it remains unclear whether the prevailing mechanisms to exploit and learn affordances in the absence of human interaction can be extended to affordances in social contexts. This study provides a review of the concept of affordance in psychology and robotics and proposes a new view on social affordances in robotics and their differences from physical affordances. We moreover show how the model-based reinforcement learning theory provides a useful framework to study and compare social and physical affordances. To further study their differences, we present a new benchmark task mixing navigation and social interaction, in which a robot has to make a human follow and reach different goal positions in a row. This new task is solved in simulation using a modular architecture and reinforcement learning.

Social Norm Awareness and Norm Compliance in Online Games

Online games are one of the most popular information systems in the world, with over 2 billion users worldwide. Most users follow the social norms and standards of behavior in online games, but some violate social norms, negatively affecting others’ gameplay experiences and weakening loyalty to the game. The social norms in games and other online environments often differ from the social norms in the real world, so are users who violate norms doing so deliberately or are they unaware of the norms? Our results suggest that many users violate social norms because they do not understand them—about a third of the 1,093 participants in our study reported being unsure of the social norms in an online game they played regularly. Greater experience with a game did not significantly increase social norm awareness. Instead, perceptions of social presence, and learning routines (i.e., community learning and instructional support) influenced social norm awareness, which in turn influenced norm compliance. Thus, a technology’s social affordances, social presence, and learning routines are more important than experience using a technology in helping users become aware of and comply with social norms.

Social affordances of agile governance

AbstractAgile refers to a work management ideology with a set of productivity frameworks that support continuous and iterative progress on work tasks by reviewing one's hypotheses, working in a human‐centric way, and encouraging evidence‐based learning. In practice, public administrations have started to use agile principles and methods to plan projects, work in short sprints, iterate after receiving feedback from stakeholders, and apply a human‐centric approach to arrive at prototyped solutions. To understand the opportunities and challenges public servants perceive when they are asked to apply agile work practices, I conducted focus groups to study the social affordances of agile governance that need to be in place for public servants to adopt an agile mindset and its related practices. As a result of the exposure to agile work practices, public servants are either able to perceive its affordances and are willing to adopt agile, they falsely perceive them or they even remain hidden from them leading to a rejection of agile.

Towards an ecological social science? On introducing ‘social affordances’ to (some) social theory

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the concept of social affordances in relation to social theory. Our point of departure is the growing literature which posits, in one way or another, that affordances may be seen as social, or cultural or similar. Across the literature on social affordances, it is thus emphasized how perception is shaped within human econiches, how it is fundamentally social, historical, and cultural, but limited direct engagement with decades of scholarship within the social sciences on many of these same topics. This paper thus discusses three key themes for theories of social affordances, exploring sociological perspectives on meaning, place and power, arguing that there may be a difficult, yet fruitful, potential for not just an ecological psychology, but an ecological social science.

Safety and Exposure in Transparent School Interiors: Patterned User Perceptions of Glass

Transparency has become a key component of K-12 school architecture, intended to support active learning and foster lively social environments. But transparency’s social affordances are complex. Previous scholarship has demonstrated visibility allows for natural surveillance that may impact vulnerable users differently than their less vulnerable peers. Thus, the interdisciplinary research team surveyed user perceptions of transparent features of non-classroom spaces in a contemporary U.S. middle school building. After determining patterns of perceptions using latent class analyses, variations across classes regarding participant demographics, health, well-being, and family functioning were assessed. We identified three classes of responses. A “multiple affordances” class ( n = 41 parents, 52 children) largely composed of participants unfamiliar with the building, whom perceived both advantages and disadvantages to glass spaces. A “glass is safe” class ( n = 52 parents, 39 children) who appreciated glass spaces as good places to hang out with friends that allowed users to detect potential threats. And a “glass exposes” class ( n = 31 parents, 33 children) who saw few benefits to glass spaces and perceived glass environments as not well protected. The glass exposes class was the most racially diverse, had the lowest family income, and reported comparably worse health, well-being, and family functioning than peers in other classes. To support vulnerable students and families, we recommend designers of secondary schools use a wider variety of levels of enclosure in non-classroom spaces to create more refined anchoring qualities and to offer richer selections of social settings for student interactions during their breaks.

“It allows me to be ‘me’”: Self-presentation, Authenticity, and Affordances among LGBTQ+ Social Media Users

LGBTQ+ social media users face many choices regarding their identity and self-presentation. We examined how feelings of authentic identity performances on social media involve social affordances using an online survey of LGBTQ+ individuals (N =159) who responded to open- ended questions about their social media use and self-presentation. Results of our thematic analysis indicated that LGBTQ+ users perceive tensions between communicating authentic versus inauthentic self-representations on social media and that feeling (in)authentic can be understood through social affordances. Whereas personalization and anonymity were described as enabling authenticity, editability and privacy affordances were described as inhibiting authenticity. Other affordances, including conversation control, persistence, social presence, and network association were tension-filled, supporting and constraining authenticity depending on how the user perceived them. We discuss our findings and implications concerning future research directions regarding affordances and self-presentation.

Examining the Affordances of an Online Learning Platform: A Usefulness Theoretical Perspective

This study examined the affordances of an online learning platform used in a Chinese university for online teaching and learning during the pandemic period. A usefulness theoretical perspective was adopted to examine three types of affordances of the platform, namely, educational affordances, social affordances, and technological affordances. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, including survey questionnaires, observation, and semi-structured interviews. A range of educational affordances emerged from the results, including Representation, Resource sharing, Community-building, Promoting interaction, and Administration. However, despite the respondents’ perceived ease of use of the platform, results indicate that the platform played a limited role in increasing learners’ social presence. A framework for examining usefulness has been developed based on the results. Pedagogical implications are proposed and suggestions for future research are provided.